About Storyhouse | Storyhouse (2025)

Brand-new drama, big stage shows, live music, internationally-acclaimed dance and opera, famous faces, comedians, family shows and more.

Spaces to work, study, collaborate and create in our award-winning library, where stories line the walls.

Independent and international filmmakers, unmissable big-screen blockbusters, cult classics, family favourites, documentaries, and more.

Join us for a busy summer season of outdoor performance, events and a festival atmosphere – Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, Moonlight Flicks and more!

Arts Council England (ACE) is the national development agency for creativity and culture. Storyhouse is part of ACE’s National Portfolio of regularly funded organisations, receiving c£228,000 per annum to support activities that deliver against their 10 year strategy, Let’s Create. Our work contributes to the strategy’s three key outcomes: Creative People, Cultural Communities and A Creative and Cultural Country.

Storyhouse is a strategic partner to Cheshire West & Chester, receiving investments of c£1.1m per annum to support activity contributing to all six of the mission’s set out in the Borough Plan: Starting well, Tackling hardship and poverty, Resilient people living their best lives, Opportunity in a fair, local economy, Neighbourhood pride and Greener Communities.

As supporters of Chester BID (Business Improvement District), we work closely with colleagues across the city on initiatives such as promotional campaigns, management of anti-social behaviour, Christmas activities and shared training.

Storyhouse is pleased to support Chester Zoo’s Sustainable Palm Oil Communities. This fantastic conservation campaign was launched in 2017 and just two years later, Chester became the world’s first Sustainable Palm Oil City. Storyhouse has committed to ensuring that the palm oil in any of the products we use is only drawn from sustainable sources.

The One City Plan sets out a vision for how the public, private and voluntary sector are working together to make in Chester a fairer, stronger and greener city. These ambitions align to Storyhouse’s own and we will continue to work with partners across the city to help deliver the plan.

The University of Chester is a major partner to Storyhouse, co-delivering a number of initiatives including Chester International Film Festival, Storyhouse Climate, Festival of Ideas, joint research projects and support for international students and communities in Chester.

Place for the Arts in Chester is a community interest company with a mission to make Chester a more attractive and fun place to live in and visit. The model takes unoccupied business premises on Chester’s high streets to create pop-up art galleries for local artists to showcase their work. In support of PACh’s mission, which aligns with our own, we proudly facilitate exhibitions, receptions and the sale of artists work in our building.

Storyhouse is pleased to work in partnership with The Countess of Chester to explore supporting hospital staff wellbeing, and to host pop-up testing for local communities to drop in to have blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol checked, relieving some of the pressure on A&E services. Supported by a team of highly skilled social prescribers from the voluntary sector, the Countess of Chester pop-up initiative is able to direct pathways for diagnosed medical concerns as well as conversational health concerns i.e. mental health, unemployment, sick leave and more. By hosting at Storyhouse, we can enable our visitors to benefit from this preventative initiative and contribute to the health and wellbeing of our communities.

Our colleagues at Marketing Cheshire promote our region nationally and internationally to investors, students, businesses and leisure visitors. We are working with Marketing Cheshire and other venues across Chester to collaboratively promote Chester as a multi venue conferencing city.